For power stations, the fundamental objective is to monitor the combustion which is taking place in a combustion chamber in the power station, for example a boiler with a base area of 10 meters by 10 meters, over as wide an area as possible, to enable the variables required for optimizing the combustion process to be derived therefrom.
Thus, absorption spectroscopy is a known method. As an alternative measurement technology, acoustic pyrometry is also known. Using absorption spectroscopy or acoustic pyrometry, it is only possible to measure mean values along a line in the boiler or combustion chamber.
For the purpose of calculating the temperature and concentration distribution in a plane in a combustion chamber from measured mean values at various places in a power station's combustion chamber, a known method is the CAT measurement technique, Computer Aided Tomography.